Vagrant Records
2003
A Mark, A Mission, A Brand, A Scar
About This Album
By the time their third studio album, the cumbersomely titled A Mark, A Mission, A Brand, A Scar, was released in the summer of 2003, Dashboard Confessional had long been poised as the band that would bring emo crashing into the mainstream. Never mind that Weezer already did that, before this kind of music even had a name -- during the late '90s, while Weezer was away, emo became an underground phenomenon ignored by the press and built by word of mouth by sensitive teenagers eager for music that spelled out their feeling explicitly. Other emo bands were purer or rawer, but Dashboard Confessional had one thing in their favor: the band was essentially a showcase for its singer/songwriter, Chris Carrabba. Blessed with modelesque good looks, Carrabba is a heartthrob for the misunderstood, partially because of those beautiful features, but also partly because he is a more sensitive singer/songwriter than James Taylor, appealing to the anxious adolescent still learning how to navigate the sometimes treacherous waters of love. Nearly all emo is defiantly adolescent in its word and approach -- it disregards such niceties as melody, hooks, subtlety, and craft, favoring raw unfettered expression of emotion instead -- but where other emo bands get caught in the Sturm und Drang by bittersweetly concentrating on matters of the heart, Dashboard Confessional have a wider appeal, not least because the band is not so damn noisy as its emo brethren.
Track List (try tracks 2,3,4,5,6,7,10 and 13)

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